


best known for burning bridges

by gonnafeelgood



Category: Bandom RPF, Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-12
Updated: 2007-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonnafeelgood/pseuds/gonnafeelgood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In five years you won't remember getting fired or whatever.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	best known for burning bridges

It's not like they couldn't have seen it coming, if they'd been looking.

If they'd cared.

"We fly out on the 12th," Spencer's voice reverberated around Brent's kitchen, his voice strained and tinny. It might have been the speakerphone.

It might have been.

Brent sucked in a deep breath, his hands tightening on the counter. "Goddamit, Spencer. A month. Off. We agreed to a month, nothing before Baltimore."

"I know," Spencer did know. Spencer knew because he suggested it too, had been the other one to talk Ryan and Brendon down off of that tour high they'd been riding.

They were going to take that month, the whole time. They were going to sleep and play with Spencer's sisters and actually set up Brent's condo. They were going to watch movies and not touch a fucking musical instrument and make out on the couch. They were going to go get their own lattes and pay for their own pizzas and go to a stupid movie without a bodyguard.

They were going to be normal.

"Spencer," Brent knew that his voice sounded pleading, angry, resigned. He knew it wouldn't work, but he had to try and he kind of hated Spencer for that. "Please. I can't do it again. I …"

"Look," Spencer said. "It's an hour-long flight, a few hours in L.A., and then we're home. What's the big fucking deal?"

"It's …" It was everything. It was time and girls screaming and Brendon's face after a show and not being allowed to touch Spencer's hips and playing through a show that he kept feeling distanced from.

"I didn't agree to this," Brent said, his voice flat. Maybe Spencer blamed that on speakerphone, too. Joined together in some way, if often in denial. "I didn't agree to it."

Spencer huffed that special huff that meant 'I'm fucking done with this' that he had previously only used with Ryan. "See you at the airport."

Cell phones don't give that satisfying click when someone hangs up on you. The click that didn't sound bounced around the kitchen anyway.

*

So they really couldn't have been that shocked when they didn't see him at the airport.

Brent certainly wasn't when he picked up his phone, hands cold and a little clammy, stomach churning. He wasn't surprised that it was Spencer calling, that they had made Spencer make the call. He was surprised that words like "royalties" and "rights" were involved, that it was all so much like a business.

Just not as surprised as he'd thought he should be.

*

_i know 40 hours a week would suit you fine_

Brent had just wanted to play bass. He wanted to play in a garage with his friends, fumbling hands over strings and piecing together something that was simply theirs. He'd wanted to have a girlfriend who watched his shitty band at basement shows and to roll his eyes at Ryan trying to be cool and to drink beer in the corner with Brendon, laughing at Brendon's imitations of Spencer pissed off.

He hadn't known that all of this was an option. He hadn't dreamed that he could trade all of what he wanted for a kind of excellent band and a record deal and Pete Wentz on his speed dial and Spencer Smith on his knees.

If there was a way to combine the two, to take Spencer to the slower, easier world, Brent would have done it. He would have tried, anyway, even though he always suspected that there was more convenience than love between them, at least on one side.

Still, Brent would have tried.

But Spencer wouldn't have come. So Brent didn't ask.

*

_this is how it feels to be free_

When Brent feels particularly self-punishing these days, sometimes he'll surf around LiveJournal communities and buzznet and YouTube. It's weird. At first it had hurt to see that space where his arms and legs and smile (okay, scowl) belonged. The only thing he could see was negative space, the parts of the photo where nobody's arm was around Ryan's shoulder or nobody was staring at Spencer, the places where Brent could have been.

Then it hurt because someone was filling that space. Brent _knew_ Jon, had smoked a surreptitious bowl or two behind The Academy's bus with him, had laughed hysterically as Jon kicked Brendon's ass on Guitar Hero, had handed him a cold Coke and taken only a bright smile as payment. Brent doesn't know if it hurt more because it was Jon or less.

He does know that the guys are being taken care of. That, probably, helps.

Probably.

But eventually, keeping an eye on them loses its sting. Brent is surprised on the day that he's actually happy for the smile in Ryan's eyes or the grin on Brendon's face. He still has trouble looking for anything in Spencer's photos, mostly because he can't see much more than himself reflected back.

*

It's not so bad, being kicked out of one of the biggest bands in the country. It's almost like the vacation Brent had so desperately wanted, stretched into a year and a half instead of a month. He sets up his condo and he goes to bookstores and the movies without an entourage. He's started playing in a band with these guys that he knew from high school, just kind of messing around in someone's garage, talking about maybe trying to get a gig at one of the few open mic nights in Vegas.

He hangs out with people he had never had time to call back before. He's learning to cook in this cooking class he's taking with his sister and is surprised that he kind of likes it. He has groceries that he bought himself in his refrigerator.

Sure, he doesn't have anyone to make out on the couch with. But no life is perfect.

*

One night, his AIM chirps at him, the privacy settings prompting him to decide whether to accept the message.

"Would you like to read the message from 'dontpanic'?" The screen flashes at him.

Brent doesn't recognize the name, but he figures it's not a big deal. The(ir) fans haven't really bothered tracking down his contact info, anyway. It's probably just some gross old dude looking for cyber sex. A gross old dude who gets _Hitchhiker_ references, anyway.

He clicks "Accept."

**dontpanic:** you never changed your AIM  
**bwilson1986:** from what? who is this?  
**dontpanic:** god, how do you get to have the same AIM since 9th grade? unfair

Brent thinks. Who the hell was he IMing in 9th grade?

Oh … shit.

**bwilson1986:** …  
**bwilson1986:** ryan?  
**dontpanic:** close  
**bwilson1985:** spencer?  
**dontpanic:** yah

Brent's hands start sweating and his stomach feels like it's been flipped inside out.

**bwilson1985:** um.  
**bwilson1986:** …  
**bwilson1986:** what the fuck?  
**dontpanic:** what, i can't instant message you anymore?  
**bwilson1986:** historically?  
**bwilson1986:** no  
**bwilson1986:** also, legally?  
**bwilson1986:** i don't think so  
**dontpanic:** yeah, i heard about that  
**dontpanic:** seriously, a lawsuit?  
**bwilson1986:** this is fucking surreal  
**dontpanic:** well, you know …

Brent waits.

And waits.

**bwilson1986:** jesus, i know what? what are you doing?  
**dontpanic:** i just …  
**dontpanic:** it's late. everyone's asleep  
**dontpanic:** i was thinking about you  
**bwilson1986:** so you thought you'd just hop on to see if you could message me after dumping me on the fucking phone?  
**dontpanic:** don't put all that on me. you're the one who didn't fucking show up  
**dontpanic:** and didn't answer his phone or e-mails or text messages  
**dontpanic:** we thought you were fucking DEAD  
**bwilson1986:** …  
**bwilson1986:** i wasn't talking about the band

He kind of was. But not entirely.

**dontpanic:** i know  
_**dontpanic is offline**_

That's the closest they ever come to talking about it.

*

_turn around and take a look at the crowd_

When Panic! plays the Video Music Awards, Brent finds out because his brother-in-law is working security at the hotel.

"Fucking rock stars," he's been grumbling all week, apparently forgetting that Brent used to (kind of) be a rock star. When Brent casually asks whose suite he pulled, he lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding when Paul answers: "The Foo Fighters."

It gets sucked back in when Paul continues. "But they might transfer me over to Fall Out Boy. I guess their security is crazy. Their fans are nuts."

Brent's seen. He also kind of remembers.

He doesn't do anything stupid. He doesn't go to the hotel or get Paul to sneak him in or anything. He just watches the VMAs on MTV like every other normal 21 year old in the world.

He can admit, as long as its himself he's talking to, that he probably watches the FOB Fantasy Suite a little more closely than the others, looking for snatches of faces or the backs of heads that he knows.

So when Panic! steps up to perform something new, Brent's already pretty practiced at being honest with himself. And he can honestly say that nothing clenches when a bassline that he's never played starts, when Brendon's voice wavers over notes he doesn't know and Spencer's hands fly over beats he's never heard.

At the end of the song, when three voices fade out instead of two, Brent imagines that he sees something on Spencer's face, a searching look that Brent almost recognizes.

But then they cut to commercials and Brent turns the television off. He has to get to sleep early tonight. He has practice tomorrow at noon and he needs to stop by the store before that. He's almost out of milk.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorta songfic, based on Le Tigre's "TGIF." Thanks to [](http://secrethappiness.livejournal.com/profile)[**secrethappiness**](http://secrethappiness.livejournal.com/) for the quick-n-dirty beta.


End file.
